MH-230 cLOUDDEAD - TenTen finds cLOUDDEAD building on all of the elements that defined their debut: razor sharp vocal interplay, quirky found sound samples, ambient drone dreamscapes, lyrics that walk the line between observational and confessional, and a fair share of nosdam drums slowed to a growl. Doseone and why? never take the cheap way out. Their lyrics may range from blurry and buried to sharp and surfaced, but each and every line has meaning. The music and production are collaborative, featuring Doseone's knack for bottling emotion, why's self-taught multi-instrumentalist efforts, and odd nosdam's flair for borrowed genius. Individually, Doseone, why? and odd nosdam are as prolific and fearless as anyone in today's new music scene, but together as cLOUDDEAD they are able to create music that captures all of the promise of their individual talents in an unequaled sound.

The most artistic hip-hop has usually relied on a rapper's ability to transmit to listeners an eye-level view of his surroundings (and possibly comment on them), but what are a group of rappers to do when those experiences - on a video shoot, no less - apparently include the following, as cLOUDDEAD claim?: "Two small girls and a handful of dressed men walk a cage full of goats across a b-ball court.." The only question is whether this trio of subunderground rappers, influenced by Eno much more than EPMD, can conjure a musical backing that fully conveys the surreality of their surroundings. Surprisingly, the mélange of tape grime and nth-gen samples that constitutes Ten is certainly the proper arrangement for these psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness raps. Doseone and why? pair their vocals or mumble or speak in nursery-school singsong, while head producer odd nosdam plunders thrift-shop LPs and forgotten reel-to-reel recordings for samples, often airing spoken-word passages as between-bars commentary. Random and disorienting on a first listen, Ten is actually a closely composed piece of modernist music. - All Music Guide